From down here, the weight of the world settles on my shoulders. I feel as tired and dry as bones, aged by the unrelenting suns.
“She was onmylap hours ago.” Lucian winks with a wicked flare.
“Stop it!” I snap as I slide off Erevan’s lap. “You two will be fighting over my bones if we can not find a way to end this war.” That silences them. “What idea do you have, Erevan?”
“We regroup.”
“You mean retreat?” Lucian mutters in disgust, propping an elbow on his raised leg.
“Yes.” Erevan levels him with a glare.
“And where, pray tell, would we retreat to? The elvish armies have us cornered; they wait for one of us to show up and fight so they can stab us with one of the swords they stole. We fight to defend our wall every night and day. There is nowhere to run but into battle,” Lucian scoffs, cracking his knuckles. Some of the dried blood flakes off, falling like snowflakes.
Those of us who survived now fight from a distance; Lucian is the only fool crazy enough to battle beyond these walls. I forge weapons for us while the others have been draining their magic dry to defend our last stronghold, but even then, it is not enough.
The enemy has too many soldiers. They know if they can get close enough to subdue us, hundreds will die, but one will get close enough to end us.
I’ve seen it happen.
Erevan clasps his hands. “Another world,” he replies coolly. “I was thinking of Panthas, to be exact. We have been therebefore. We are familiar with the lands and creatures. It’d be the perfect place to gather again.”
“What?” Lucian sputters.
I grab Erevan’s hand; black soot stains his golden skin. “That is forbidden.” My voice is a closed book. As gods, we discovered how to open up portals that lead to another world; it was deemed forbidden to corrupt lands not our own.
“By whom?”
“You know by whom,” Lucian growls in warning.
“Panthas was made by the same creature, a Genesis, who made us. They will welcome us.” Erevan argues.
“Panthas’s maker is different.” Lucian disputes, “She and our father have parted ways. Attkris is our world. Panthas ishers. I do not wish to anger one of the Genesis, Erevan.”
“The Genesis made us! They have to help us. Our ways are about to be erased.” Erevan’s voice rises. “We have no other option. We can worry about the consequences, if there are any, later. Unlike our enemies, we can leave these lands. What I am suggesting is that we retreat and fall back. We hide in the other world and regroup. We build a new army.”
“With what?” Lucian barks, shaking his head in disdain. “Our discovery of Panthas revealed only those who called each other human. They have no magic; they would be ants killed quickly under elvish boots. You’d doom another species to death.”
“So we change them,” Erevan counters. “As the God of Enchantment, I will give them magic.”
“Erevan!” I gasp as I drop his hand. “That’s forbidden…” Yet my words slowly die as realization hits home. He’s right. Our old laws, etched in stone, no longer exist; our enemy has broken the rock.
War erases morality. But if we expunge it from our minds, we’re no better than the enemy.
“Let’s say we consider this,” Lucian suggests, sitting taller. The mound of rocks behind him look like a throne. It’s what our empire resembles now: rubble. “If humans can accept our magic and learn to wield it, and that is a huge if, who’s to say they can stand a chance against the enemy who has inherited magic? You are condemning more to die.”
“I have considered this. They will stand a chance; in the years to come, their magic will grow, and in time, they will master it as our enemy has. Humans would become new creatures. Our magic will transform them, but we will leave some untouched, so that their history is not erased. That seems fair.” Erevan looks down and rubs invisible dust off his gold clothing. “I also recommend we don’t just make an army of these magic-born humans.”
“You sound insane,” I whisper. I look to the scalding fire; the heat presses into my eyes, pulling water forth.
Erevan turns my face back to his, then twirls a lock of my fire-kissed golden hair around his finger.“Sometimes, one must be mad in order to see what the enemy doesn’t. I am suggesting…” He pauses; his inhale is a lifetime long. His eyes fill with regret and a turbulence of pain I have never seen upon his brow. “I am suggesting the three of us have children.”
“What?” Lucian and I both reply in shock.
“We cannot have children,” I murmur. Thus, we’ll never have the numbers our enemy has.
“Gods can’t have children together.” Erevan’s gulp unlocks a terrible secret. “But we can have them with humans,” he adds, voice quieter this time.
I flinch. “Thatis blasphemous.”
